Monday, March 17

The Proposal

I figured it's about time for me to
post about our engagement, especially since I know someday the
details will all get a little fuzzy. Compared to most of our friends
and acquaintances here in Utah, we've been dating a long time (about
two and a half years which in “Mormon time” is basically two
thousand years). I figured we'd get married in the future but
honestly had no idea that John had already bought a ring. Which, if I
do say so myself, is the most perfect piece of jewelry in existence.
Three cheers for fiances that not only have excellent taste but
excellent memories (we window shopped once and I spotted THE RING,
the only ring in the entire world I could handle wearing around my
finger for the next several decades, and luckily John filed it away
in the “for the future” section of his brain).

A few days before he proposed, he told
me he had Friday (February 28) off work and asked if I thought I
could get off early so we could go on a date. That didn't necessarily seem unusual to me, because even though he normally works Friday, he
told me his schedule was messed up as a result of us going to
Disneyland the week before. The day of, he told me I needed to dress
up for our date.

Luckily, I am never opposed to dates
that require dressing up.

The most suspicious thought that
crossed my mind was, “Did I forget a special occasion?” John
assured me that I did not so I remained blissfully unaware as we
drove downtown. We visited the Salt Lake Museum of Contemporary Art
and we tried really, really hard to be open-minded. I spent good
chunks of my high school experience in art classrooms (which I think
I forgot to mention to John when we were first dating and I found out
he'd been involved in track, cross country, baseball, and golf while
I basically just was the Editor-in-Chief of The Prospector,
which obviously made me SUPER COOL). I totally get that art is
subjective, that sometimes it's symbolic, that Damien Hirst made
gazillions of dollars by gluing rhinestones on skulls, etc. etc. But
one of the exhibits was literally a dustpan and a bunch of dirt. At
first we thought there was a rogue janitor on the loose.

After
pretending to be really intrigued for all of ten minutes, we
hightailed it out of there and spent a little time in the Church
History Museum, which was blissfully non-weird. John kept checking
his watch and then said it was time to head over to the Joseph Smith
Memorial Building. We sat on a bench inside waiting for THE
MYSTERIOUS THING that was going to comprise the rest of our date (I
was assuming a dinner reservation at The Roof) and he kept leaving to
answer his phone.

Cue
suspicion (finally).

After
a weird 15 minutes waiting on the bench, we walked out to the road
where a horse-drawn carriage was waiting for us. I still wasn't sure
what to think because we'd actually discussed doing a carriage ride
before, so it wasn't something completely unexpected. There were
roses and blankets on the seats and I was thinking “dang it, the
next date I plan better be GOOD.” John alternated between looking
at me and smiling all-cheesy-like, my favorite, and looking behind
the carriage like he was afraid we were going to get rear-ended by a
car.

The
carriage ride took us up by Memory Grove. After a few minutes of
romantic driving in the darkness, the driver told us there really
wasn't anything else to see, so she was going to turn the carriage
around. Apparently that's somewhat of a process. Giant horse and
carriage on a narrow street? Go figure. She suggested we could walk
around the park and she'd pick us up on the way back down.

By
this point I actually was getting nervous because how many coincidental, engagement-type things can happen before you have to
stop brushing off that nagging suspicion? We walked to a little
bridge over a river, and once we stepped onto it, John said something
like, “Remember how you asked if it was a special occasion and I
said it wasn't? Well, actually, I wanted to ask you a question.”

Then
he got down on one knee and pulled out a black box containing THE
RING and said, “Will you marry me?” and definitely some stuff I
couldn't even remember 15 seconds after he said it, but I'm confident
it was beautiful and perfect and romantic. I immediately started
crying because that's just how I am and apparently that was
concerning to him, since I neglected to say “yes” before the
waterworks started.

Spoiler:
I said yes.

Then I
cried some more. And he did too. He'll deny it, but I was there and
that's the gospel truth.

He
also revealed that the reason he kept looking behind us during the ride was that his mom dropped off the roses for the carriage
and he was afraid I'd see her car and get suspicious. Which is great news because I thought maybe carriage rides just made him super nervous and we'd never get to go on one again.

After we got
back from the carriage ride, I found out we did indeed have
reservations at The Roof (when he made them he said he might or might
not show up, depending on my response to the proposal). Although it's
one of my favorite places I ate approximately 3 bites of prime rib
and then was way too excited to even attempt anything else. So I'm
glad he paid a small fortune for that dinner. ;)

Also, hold your applause when you see the ring because I'm getting a wedding band that fits with it too and it's really the icing on the cake. I'm completely in love with it but not QUITE as much as I am with the giver of said ring. Mark your calendars for June 6!